Category Archives: Knowing Yourself

Give some of your money and some of your time to nonprofit groups. I recommend choosing a local organization like a shelter or museum so you can see the direct benefit of your participation, rather than a celebrity-supported cause – they already get plenty of attention.

Pictures are easily transmitted and recorded for posterity. The consequences of allowing yourself to be captured in a compromising light might not be apparent to you now, but they will be one day. The best advice I can give you is to avoid being snapped doing anything you wouldn’t want your father to see.

Subconscious belief that there is a line you cannot cross -a line that separates the realistic from the impossible- is what keeps talented people from achieving success. If you want to write the great American novel, star in a Tom Stoppard play, or be point guard for the Sparks, just research the usual steps needed to do those things, then embark upon the journey. Whether you succeed or not will be based on your talent, not your drive; that’s respectable.

Get off your butt and lend a hand. Providing active service helps others and makes your life richer. Clear the table, water the plants, cook dinner, babysit: I can’t explain exactly why, but I promise that you will feel incrementally better about yourself and your life every single time you get up and do something for someone else.

My child, if as a baby you were sometimes comforted by my loving care, and if your heart preserves the memory of those moments, I hope you will place your trust in this advice, which is prompted by my love for you, and that it will help you to be happy.